to think this is akin to slave labour.

[northernsoul78]

A friend on JSA is expected to do 30 hours mandatory (voluntary) work in a charity shop for 30 hours per week and apply for at least 10 jobs per week. It wouldn't be so bad if the voluntary work wouldbe likely to lead to a job but ofcourse it won't.
Aibu

You not going to bother with a DRB check first?

Yanbu! I just wrote out a really long ranty post but just realised that Garlick and Cruikshank said it so much better.

Several pages back someone asked what he would be doing if not in the charity shop.

Actually, the extra time one has on JSA goes some way to making up the accompanying severe lack of money (bearing in mind childless claimant). It takes a hell of a lot of time to make JSA stretch far enough. Walking everywhere, shopping round for cut-price food, going to supermarkets looking for bargains just before closing time, fixing stuff that's broken and you cant afford to replace. I lived amongst a whole load of people in this position for a while - I did a lot of patching up clothes and cooking big vats of food which they'd got from supermarket bins or very reduced just before shops closed ("ready steady cook for tramps" as one said... gallows humour!)

Aww so kind moving.

I'd like to thank you for bankrolling me. Have a virtual as a thank you.

Seriously...people should work for nothing and be grateful because it is teaching them routine and how it feels to have a job???

It doesn't even teach people how it feels to have a job because (and I realise I may be speaking only for myself here) quite a big bloody part of feeling like I've got a job is the wage packet I get at the end of the month.

And thank you, Moving, Helena and Garlick and all the other people who have tried to steer this sorry thread into the realm of the sensible.

If they really wanted to work they would pay for a DBS check themselves MissFitt.

Any hoo, I done some sums and it turns out we can accommodate you ALL on the tax we've paid! Assuming your hourly rate is a pittance. Don't worry if you're unskilled or inexperienced. I can teach anyone to make tea or put the Hoover round. Unless your physically disabled in which case just being the very presence of a tax payer should give your self esteem a little boost.

Oh, and some of you are claiming other benefits, so using the logic displayed by some on this thread you actually owe me money....

Not that the premise or header of the thread is poor at all, northernsoul - sorry, didn't mean it to sound like that. It's just all of the 'alarm clock Britain' garbage that followed it.

I do really feel for your friend.

Being serious for a minute, I'm glad that so many people have made reasoned and evidenced based posts and challenged some pretty shabby slurs on this thread

moving, cruik, elementofsurprise et al thanks for restoring some measure of reason and empathy to the thread. Having rtft it seems that there is agreement on the injustice and inefficacy of this workfare scheme by pretty much everyone who has had any direct experience in either supporting ppl on jsa to find work or who have been on jsa themselves in recent times.

Let me pre-empt some forthcoming posts by telling you all that, despite frequent requests, the government has been unable to show a single verification for its claim of X thousand "multi-generational workless" families. Only five such families have been found.

Yy. That was the JRF report, wasn't it? They really did do their best to find examples of this multi-generational worklessness, but couldn't. It makes for heart-breaking reading actually, as I recall, because what they did find was that, following the decline of heavy and other industry in certain patches of the UK, there were families who were now on their second generation of people finding short-term precarious work coupled with flitting on and off the dole during their working years - but they still took on those jobs that wouldn't go anywhere, that would leave them back on the dole again when the work ran out, that involved insane amounts of 'juggling' (and seriously, the Islington press going on about 'juggling commitments' know nothing of the reality of your work consisting of getting a call at 9pm at night offering you a 6am start and having to make arrangements for your kids on the hoof without even the promise that the shift will last all day and you'll be able to pay for the sodding childcare anyway) - even with that, people were still working, against the odds, often against what made monetary sense given delays with benefits when the work slows down or dries up. And these are the families who clearly do want to work that the Tories stand on their hind legs and pontificate about the difference between skivers and strivers and all the rest of that nasty rhetoric.

YY cruik And the steel workers who were made redundant recently are very likely going to go through the same thing.

Lordy don't start bringing evidence to the thread. There are posters here commenting who don't even read the posts they object to being here!

I do have sympathy with those who believe the strivers/skivers rhetoric. It's magical thinking to help protect you from the realisation that a chance event could see you personally in the same boat - which is a very scary prospect. It is infinitely more comforting to believe those less fortunate brought it on themselves because then we are untouchable if we just stick to the rules and make the right decisions.

It's just a shame evidence and reason bust the myths. It would be much nicer if the rhetoric was true.

I really feel for the steel workers, Helena - they are highly skilled people who have, tragically for them, become trained to do a job that has through no fault of their own become obsolete in a relatively short space of time, and who are living in areas where employment opportunities are few and far between. It's awful.

Moving - I absolutely agree with you about people needing to tell themselves that those in a worse position than them are there because of laziness or poor life choices or whatever - the alternative is terrifying. What I do object to though are those fools in Parliament feeding us all this stuff. Cameron isn't an idiot. Osborne isn't an idiot. They're bastards, but they're not stupid. So they know that hard work doesn't always = money, and they certainly know (especially Cameron, inheriting his tax-dodging father in law's ££millions) that money doesn't always come about as a result of hard work. And yet they endlessly jaw on about 'doing the right thing', such a puerile, facile phrase that has the double effect of masking reality and also pitting us against each other. It's nasty, calculated stuff.

My DH runs a charity shop he does not use workfare people, however if he DID it would not be to replace paid workers as only he and his assistant gets paid.

On the other hand his assistant got her experience through being on a work fare programme, decided she liked the work, volunteered in another charity shop and eventually got a paid job.

One of DH volunteers on JSA (not mandated) was put in a workfare programme in a homeless shelter, she was coming back to DH shop after her time was up but was offered a paid job at the shelter on the back of her workfare work.

It seems very unfair that two people could be working somewhere, doing the same work and same hours, but one is paid a wage and the other jsa. This could be purely down to chance or luck of timing in application for the job, or even discrimination in hiring, both people could have the same skills and have put the same effort into job hunting. Yet one is to be punished indefinitely by working without receiving a wage?

I assume those of you who think the situation is acceptable 'work in exchange for money' would be very happy to continue in your current jobs but have your salary swapped for jsa? If not, you are basically saying that anyone who is on jsa is less deserving than you of being paid for work. That somehow they should be punished as they must be at fault to find themselves unemployed? There may well be cases like that, but the genuine claimants should not be punished for it. Suggesting policies that mean they would be punished for it is beyond rude, it is actively harmful.

Government intervention in the market to sustain the housing bubble is the real welfare apparently, so homeowners should not begrudge paying taxes too much. In many parts of the UK, they will be the net recipients of govt welfare, at cost to those unable to buy or paying huge rents.

I would be interested to know what would happen if someone doing this work for jsa were to say they have found themselves another voluntary role or training for those 30 hours a week. If they could prove that, would they be allowed to switch or forced to go on in what may be a much less relevant or helpful role (for their prospects) at the charity shop?

By the way I say punished indefinitely as I don't know how long these schemes run. I don't think doing a very short term or occasional stint would be so unfair.

Its basically what happened to Cait Reilly

Just to say to all those who think that 30 hours a week 'volunteering' leaves ample time for job-seeking, I presume you all have full internet access at all times, the ability to print stuff off, and transport at your disposal. Try paying for any kind of connectivity on JSA, let alone the rest of it.

Just imagine living on that kind of budget for a few weeks, let alone months. And then imagine some small thing going wrong for you. Of course, many people would choose this way of life rather than work. It's such an easy life, no responsibilities, no worries.

On a previous thread i shared an article about a rogue gas fitter who nearly poisoned an entire family (their dog had to be put to sleep due to the effects of carbon monoxide poisoning)
He got 200 hours community service....spread over a year. Less hours than workfarers have to do (the community workfare placements were six months long.

Jsa is about 70 odd quid a week right?

So someone on workfare should only have to do the amount of hours that this equals to. About 11ish hours rather than 30 if you base it on minimum wage.
So yea it is a bit like slave labour beyond those 11 hours, unless people seriously think it's ok to pay them about 2 quid an hour whilst people employed to do the same job get a proper wage.

You should respond to the post. I am shocked at the unfairness, firstly at the people in the job centre but then they have their 'targets' to meet', that's a farce and secondly at the right wing views on this thread and thirdly at charities taking part in this scheme. A fair day's pay for a fair day's work.
Why don't you all get together and bring back the workhouse, that would save paying housing benefit and you could all sleep easy in your sanctimonious beds! Yes it is akin to slave labour.

Mascara don't forget having your NIC paid for, free prescriptions, eye tests, dental work housing costs, council tax, all tax free, what's the benefit cap for a unemployed person at the mo? 26k, you could say that's what people on workfare are working for 26k tax free.

I don't personally agree with workfare but lets be realistic with the add ons its more than just the JSA they get isn't it.

And yes someone doing the same job for min wage might also get in work benefits but at least they are working for it.

And as I have said before people doing workfare in charity shops are not taking away a paid position just adding to the unpaid workforce

sorry what I meant to say in my last post is there are many many reasons why workfare is a bad idea BUT the only working for 2 quid an hour is not quite true, especially if the person they are working alongside has to pay for things out of their wages that the workfare person gets free, or has to go through hoops to get income based benefits that JSA is a passport to

Do we know which charity this is? I work for a charity and we are absolutely not allowed to take anyone on 'mandatory' work fare schemes. we can offer voluntary experience (which for anyone who is interested does involve full training, development, proper insurance, public liability, H & S awareness, proper breaks etc etc etc) for anyone who genuinely wants voluntary experience - for as many or as few hours as they would like.

Charities (like Poundland etc did) would receive very poor publicity if they were actively engaging in 'work fare' schemes.

I think there is no reason for an able bodied adult with no dependant children to be out of work for anything other than a short time. If there are no jobs in your immediate area you need to move to where the work is - seems to work well for Eastern Europeans.

My 18 year old DD would fall into this category, having been looking for work since June. Our nearest city (60 miles away) is London. According to you, that's where she should go to chase the work. Great. Does she commute there daily while she job hunts (approx cost £23/day if she travels off peak) or should she rent a room up there while she concentrates her search?

It's easy to come out with the 'they should all move' crap, but less easy to do. I'm sure, however, that you think it's perfectly fine for a young adult to just leave all her support networks and move to a strange city to look for a NMW job. FWIW, before you get aerated about her being a drain on taxpayers, she isn't claiming JSA or any other benefits.